Exorcismus Review

Every now and then a movie comes along that tries to recreate "The Exorcism" film and dive into subjects such as demons, possession and The Devil himself. Most end up repeating what we've already seen before and are no better than their preprocessors while SOME are successful at putting there own spin on the sub-genre and that's all we can hope for in the end right? Well Exorcismus falls into the latter category as this film proved that just because you use something that has already been done, doesn't mean originality is completely out of the window.

Exorcismus follows the story of Emma Evans (Sophie Vavasseur), a home schooled teenager who finds herself possessed by an angry demon. One day Emma has an unexplained seizure and she quickly comes to the realization that a demon has entered her body which causes her to do and say things that she has no recollection of. Emma immediately reaches out to her Uncle who is a Priest and gives her obvious options she can take to get rid of the demon. Emma's parents don't believe her claims of the "supernatural" deeming her issues are more psychological than anything. They send Emma to see several shrinks but that only leads to more episodes and even more out of body experiences. Her parents eventually change their minds once they witness her possession first hand during a scene where she levitates off the ground for several seconds after having yet another seizure. The next step is obviously to have an exorcism as is the case in a number of these movies! Meanwhile Emma's uncle, the Priest has his own set of issues which is revealed later on in the film.

The events following the exorcism are both shocking and disturbing but at the same time different than anything you will see in other exorcism type films. Director Manuel Carballo went above and beyond to insure that Exorcismus wouldn't be just another run of the mill supernatural film and he did a hell of a job in doing so. The film was creepy and scary at the same time and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. You think you know what to expect when you see movies like this but the surprises throughout and the climax at the end was surely an unexpected one.

I highly recommend you check out the film but locating it might be the hard part. The film has at least three titles that I am aware of having been released in foreign markets previous to it's U.S. release. Exorcismus is the official title for the Spanish horror film but the actual Spanish version of the film is titled, "La posesión de Emma Evans". The film made it's U.S. debut this year under the name "The Possession of Emma Evans" so these are the names to look out for if you plan on seeing this film.

4 out of 5 stars